EU Google must remove 'manifestly inaccurate' data, EU top court says - Disclose.tv says (possibly as a joke) that would mean that over 50% of Wikipedia articles would have to be removed

Reuters:

Alphabet unit Google must remove data from online search results if users can prove it is inaccurate, Europe's top court said on Thursday.

Free speech advocates and supporters of privacy rights have clashed in recent years over people's "right to be forgotten" online, meaning that they should be able to remove their digital traces from the internet.

The case before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerned two executives from a group of investment companies who had asked Google to remove search results linking their names to certain articles criticising the group's investment model.

They also wanted Google to remove thumbnail photos of them from search results. The company rejected the requests, saying it did not know whether the information in the articles was accurate or not.

A German court subsequently sought advice from the CJEU on the balance between the right to be forgotten and the right to freedom of expression and information.

"The operator of a search engine must de-reference information found in the referenced content where the person requesting de-referencing proves that such information is manifestly inaccurate," the Court of Justice of the European Union said.

To avoid an excessive burden on users, judges said such proof does not have to come from a judicial decision against website publishers and that users only have to provide evidence that can reasonably be required of them to find.

Google said the links and thumbnails in question were no longer available through web search and image search and that the content had been offline for a long time.

"Since 2014, we've worked hard to implement the right to be forgotten in Europe, and to strike a sensible balance between people’s rights of access to information and privacy," a spokesperson said.

The same court in 2014 enshrined the right to be forgotten, saying that people could ask search engines like Google to remove inadequate or irrelevant information from web results appearing under searches for their names.

The judgment preceded landmark EU privacy rules that went into effect in 2018 and state that the right to be forgotten is excluded where the processing of personal data is necessary for the exercise of the right of information.

The case is C-460/20 Google (Déréférencement d'un contenu prétendument inexact).

Article

Case docket:
Archive

Opinion:
Archive

Final Judgement (available only in French and German):
Archive (French, German)

Disclose.tv statement:
Archive

 

[Knight of the Rope]

Disclose.tv is a fun tracker for current (politically-incorrect) happenings, but damn is the guy that runs that Twitter feed assblasted about Wikipedia labeling him an alt-right fake news generator. An unfair characterization for sure, but what the fuck did he expect?

 

[Useful_Mistake]

An unfair characterization for sure, but what the fuck did he expect?

I think it's fair for him to be mad if the characterization is unfair, but as long as they only show that madness off in joking comments that come after they make their reporting, then I think it's fine. Something like what they did with this post:

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

Disclose.tv is a fun tracker for current (politically-incorrect) happenings, but damn is the guy that runs that Twitter feed assblasted about Wikipedia labeling him an alt-right fake news generator. An unfair characterization for sure, but what the fuck did he expect?

Wikipedia removes actual accurate information, with linked articles....and being written by a person who was there in the linked article because the one sentence line is "Not significant enough"

 

[Watcher]

Make no mistake this is solely a political thing. The govt isn't going to enforce this equally at all and never could even if they wanted to.

For example if you asked them to remove Kiwifarms's Wikipedia page because it states Byuu killed himself and there's no evidence that he did, they're just going to use the same line Wikipedia said. "A journo from a big news site said it's true so it is". If it conforms to their leftist ideology they won't censor it. This'll solely be used to censor groups they don't like.

 

[Raiken]

how likely is it that they need to change the kiwifarms article on wikipedia in this situation?

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

Make no mistake this is solely a political thing. The govt isn't going to enforce this equally at all and never could even if they wanted to.

For example if you asked them to remove Kiwifarms's Wikipedia page because it states Byuu killed himself and there's no evidence that he did, they're just going to use the same line Wikipedia said. "A journo from a big news site said it's true so it is". If it conforms to their leftist ideology they won't censor it. This'll solely be used to censor groups they don't like.

And this is all a tool for the EU to try to force cultural hegemony over the rest of the world

 

[Useful_Mistake]

For example if you asked them to remove Kiwifarms's Wikipedia page because it states Byuu killed himself and there's no evidence that he did, they're just going to use the same line Wikipedia said. "A journo from a big news site said it's true so it is". If it conforms to their leftist ideology they won't censor it. This'll solely be used to censor groups they don't like.

how likely is it that they need to change the kiwifarms article on wikipedia in this situation?

The decision seems to be limited to Search Engines, though EU courts will likely use this to validate more radical censorship efforts

 

[Ewan McGregor]

And this is all a tool for the EU to try to force cultural hegemony over the rest of the world

Unless we're talking about islamic values, the idea of the European Union enforcing "European values" over the world is laughable, since they massacred each of their member countries independent cultures to create a wider "European Culture" that is just essentialy turning the whole of Europe into a big corporate environment with national level HR Departments, Alegria style and Bluescales everywhere.

Therefore, the only real culture left in Europe, and the only real humanity to be found, is brought up by immigrants. Make of that what you will.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

This has absolutely nothing to do with accurate information or people’s safety. It has everything to do with the EU not wanting you to be able to talk about certain topics.

All of the stuff now known and admitted to be true about Covid was labelled as ‘provably inaccurate’ and targeted for removal and suppression for 2 years.

 

[Knight of the Rope]

Wikipedia removes actual accurate information, with linked articles....and being written by a person who was there in the linked article because the one sentence line is "Not significant enough"

Exactly. Everyone knows what the deal is with Wikipedia. Heck, some of the same characters going after our boy Disclose.tv are probably the same ones spreading their 'truth' that Kiwi Farms is a terrorist tranny-murdering website. I was just surprised that he took it so personally. I remember a recent Twitter tirade he went on about it (I'll try to find the tweets).

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

Unless we're talking about islamic values, the idea of the European Union enforcing "European values" over the world is laughable, since they massacred each of their member countries independent cultures to create a wider "European Culture" that is just essentialy turning the whole of Europe into a big corporate environment with national level HR Departments, Alegria style and Bluescales everywhere.

Therefore, the only real culture left in Europe, and the only real humanity to be found, is brought up by immigrants. Make of that what you will.

Secular Socialist European Values

That is part of the inherent plan fo the EU

to use their market power to force companies to conform to those norms

 

[get_ur_gamon]

Would this include info on troons who committed crimes before they transitioned? Like if articles "misgendered" a sex offender, would they get taken down for misrepresenting a heckin valid woman?

Would certainly make vetting troons and safeguarding much harder.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

Like if articles "misgendered" a sex offender would they get taken down for misrepresenting a heckin valid woman?

The decision seems to be limited to Search Engines

 

[Hannibalistique]

The decision seems to be limited to Search Engines, though EU courts will likely use this to validate more radical censorship efforts

The GDPR has a general right to erasure (art 17, "right to be forgotten"), but this is limited by «the extent that processing is necessary [...] for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information» (17.3a).

So barring any new legislation I doubt there will be much creep here, the article seems to make it out like this is some grand change while it has been trivial to censor personal information in google search results for years.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

So barring any new legislation I doubt there will be much creep here, the article seems to make it out like this is some grand change while it has been trivial to censor personal information in google search results for years.

But now Google must censor and will do so without the pesky limitations of the original right to to be forgotten

 

[Hannibalistique]

But now Google must censor and will do so without the pesky limitations of the original right to to be forgotten

I'm feeling daft, but in practice what is changing now? For EU citizens you used to just have to fill out a form, they haven't required any court rulings (they do note «if a court ruled in your favor in a lawsuit about the claims made against you, we would defer to that decision significantly» in their FAQ about submitting proof, however).

 

[Useful_Mistake]

I'm feeling daft, but in practice what is changing now?

Theoretically, Google had a few options for refusing. Now they have none if the information is "manifestly inaccurate" whatever that means. So, practically, more censorship.

 

[Hannibalistique]

Theoretically, Google had a few options for refusing. Now they have none if the information is "manifestly inaccurate" whatever that means. So, practically, more censorship.

Well, that's why I wrote "in practice", because it seems like status quo won't change with this.

Google have been very censorious for a long time now. As noted in the article the links in question in this case even have already been censored, years ago.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

English Version available now:

CURIA - Documents

web.archive.org